editorial

'The young lieutenant of a small Hungarian detachment in the Alps sent a reconnaissance unit into the icy wilderness. The unit did not turn back The lieutenant suffered, fearing that he had dispatched his hold people to death. But upon the third day the unit came back. Where had they been? "We considered ourselves missing and waited for the extremity And then one of us lay the foundation of a map in his pouch We pitched camp, lasted without the snowstorm and with the map discovered our bearings." Having a useful look at the map, the lieutenant discovered to his astonishment that it was not a map of the Alps, on the other hand a map of the Pyrenee

'This incident raises the intriguing possibility that when you are missing any old map will do... reach outed to the issue of strategy, maybe when you are confused, any of advanced age strategic plan will do.' (Weick, 1995: 54)

If Weick's recounting of this story might be subservient to as a parable of our times, it also quicks reflection on the recent proliferation of maps intended to guide us to happiness or well-being (Layard, 2005a; Huppert et al, 2005; Marks & Shah, 2004; Seligman, 2003) No doubt this is part of what Ilona Kickbusch has described as 'the wellness revolution', in which the biotechnology industry argues that health is a human right and 'we now suitable [health] everywhere, primarily as a product' (Kickbusch, 2006) Health has also, of course, become a moral imperative.

As far as mental health is pertain toed a discourse that was one time largely confined to psychology journals or the annals of philosophy has now pierceed the mainstream. The causes and ends of, and solutions to, national unhappiness are triggering cross-party political debate (New Statesman, 2006) and occupying prime time television (see for example, the BBC2 series The Happiness Formula (Easton, 2006)) These questions are flat influencing investment in mental health services: it was in replication to a call by Richard Layard1 for greater investment in access to CBT talking treatments (Layard, 2005b; 2006) that secretary of state for health Patricia Hewitt earlier this summer announced pilot sites in Doncaster and Newham to provide 'real, tangible evidence of the effectiveness of talking therapies' and, somewhat les credibly, to 'break the revolution of time of deprivation' (Department of Health, 2006) Scotland of course has its be in possession of centre dedicated to the pursuit of happiness (http://www.centreforconfidence.co.uk).

It is certainly a litmus ordeal of the roadworthiness of a fresh idea when a prime minister in waiting takes it upon board. David Cameron has made clear that he believes 'improving happiness is of the last importance'. Furthermore, as he told the Google Zeitgeist Europe conversation on 22 May this year: 'We should also acknowledge a vital fact that the pursuit of wealth is no longer - if it at any time was - enough to qualified people's deepest hopes and aspirations.'

Perhaps les unexpectedly well-being and the pursuit of happiness are also central themes in the house of god of England's new report Faithful Cities, which revisits the question of theological rejoinders to poverty and inequality that in the way that provoked the Tory government in 1985 (General Synod). Faithful Cities presents a stringent critique of the generally received government's failure to seriously restore inequalities, pointing out that the gap between rich and poor in the UK is single of the highest in Europe (based upon 2001 figures), and says:

'While the churches will continue to work in partnership with rule civil society, business and other faiths, they will be increasingly critical of theories and practices based genuinely on economics. They will also look for alternatives for the sake of the for the use of all good. The Church has firsthand, daily experience of the damage caused by dint of severe poverty and inequality. Equally, the meeting-house has firsthand experience of in what manner significant wealth does not translate into significant happiness' (Commission upon Urban Life and Faith, 2006) In addition to calling the house of god to task in relation to its be in possession of accumulation of wealth, the report says that the management should expand the criteria it uses for measuring economic succes by the agency of including the Measure of Domestic Progres exhibited by the New Economics Foundation (see also Marks and Shah 2004)2

What is interesting is the expansion to which positive psychology and the 'well-being agenda', the two of which have some simple bodys of secular spirituality, have been used to re-frame the debate about inequality and its meaning and impact in spiritual bourns This has parallels in Wilkinson's work upon the psycho-social impact of inequality (Wilkinson, 2005) and in Richard Eckersley's reflections upon the relationship between culture and well-being: notably, the cultural characteristics of materialism and individualism that, he argues, can have as important an impact as income inequality upon factors such as social support and personal sway (Eckersley, 2005; 2006a; 2006b). A preliminary analysis by dint of Pickett et al (2006) refer tos that higher national levels of income inequality are linked to a higher prevalence of mental illness and, in contrast to studies of physical morbidity and mortality, as countries secure richer rates of mental illness increase. As they say, as comparable data for more countries become available, it will be possible to estimate the independent, ecological associations between mental health, inequality and income horizontals